Summary Of White Lies Natasha Trethewey

Alice McIntyre talks about how whites view racism in many different examples and stories of white talk. McIntyre defines white talk throughout the reading, “Talk that serves to insulate white people from examining their/our individual and collective roles in the perpetuation of racism. It is a result of whites talking uncritically with/to other whites all the while, resisting critique and massaging each other’s racist attitude, beliefs, and actions” (McIntyre, 45-46). McIntyre talks about the themes that were discussions of white talk: “(1) How the participants constructed differences from “the Other,” (2) how they reconstructed myths about white and people of color, and (3) how they privileged their own feelings and affect over the lived

She hated the people at home when white people talked about their peculiarities; but she always hated herself more because she still thought about them, because she knew their pain at what she was doing with her life. The feelings of shame, at her own people and at the white people, grew inside her, side by side like monstrous twins that would have to be left in the hills. The people wanted her… For the people, it was that simple, and when they failed, the humiliation fell on all of them; what happened to the girl did not happen to her alone, it happened to all of them. (Silko 69)

Characters, in Heidi Durrow’s The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, force the protagonist, Rachel, to choose between her white and black side. They only acknowledge her black side while only celebrating her white qualities. Consequently, Rachel feels the obligation to accept the roles that have been thrust upon her and ignores part of her race because of the commentary from her family and peers. Rachel adapting to the portrayal of her racial identity to appeal to the normalized opinions of her appearance, demonstrates her tendency to comply with the categorization people of color face throughout society. Ultimately, leading Rachel to pick and choose the parts of her racial identity that most please the people she is with.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book Reading Ellen White by George R. Knight. I found some sections of the book to be particularly interesting. I learned different ways to interpret Ellen White’s writings. When reading at a surface level some of her writings can seem to contradict each other. It is important when reading her messages to know how to interpret what she is saying to get the full meaning of the writing. While reading through the book I came across some good points that I hope to apply to my life as well as with those I come in contact with.

Imagine finding out that your entire life was a lie, and that every single thing you knew about your identity and your family was completely false! Armand Aubigny, one of the main characters in Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin, experiences this exact dilemma throughout this short story. Desiree’s Baby is a story about a young man and woman, who fall in love, but Desiree, who does not know her birth parents, is considered nameless. When she and Armand have a child, they are both very surprised because the child’s skin color is not white as expected. It is obvious that the child is biracial, and immediately, Desiree is blamed for the color of the child’s skin because of her uncertain background. The truth, however, is that it is Armand who has

McLaurin caught interest in a girl named Charlotte Humphries who had been a schoolmate of his since the first grade. Blue eyes, blonde hair, having the complexion of a white girl, he was impressed and did not think pursuing wanting to date her would be a problem. However, regardless of his feelings, his mother disagreed and insisted that Charlotte would not be a good idea for him. McLaurin’s grandmother began to explain to him that he “just shouldn’t” pursue her, mentioning that the story behind it all goes back a long time ago. She explained that Charlotte’s great-grandmother was someone who was a “mulatto nigra”. Some mulattos pass as white, even though they are not, if they are light enough and that is what happened with Charlotte’s great-grandmother. Even though Charlotte was blue eyed blond hair, McLaurin could not pursue her simply because black ancestry was in her blood.

Cynthia White was found guilty of felony murder and cruelty to children in the death of her 3 year old son in 1992. Her convictions were affirmed in White v. State, 265 Ga. 392 (456 SE2d 587) (1995). She filed a “Petition for Resentencing Under the First Offenders Act” in July of 2016. She now appeals from the trial court's denial of that motion.

In the poem “White Lies” by Natasha Tretheway, the author uses imagery to describe the feelings of a mixed girl regarding color. In the past and somewhat still present, African Americans struggle with being accepted because of the color of their skin color. Black girls are taught to and told to embrace their color and that all shades of black are beautiful, but told by others in society that being too dark is not beautiful enough. In lines three and four, the author describes the colors of a light skinned person in very vivid colors such as “light-bright, near-white/high-yellow, red-boned” (3&4).

“Slavery in the south was brutal as anybody could imagine” an idea expressed by Jean Toomer through his poem called “November Cotton Flower”. The poem is fourteen lines of rhyming verse describing the harsh, sudden and questionable bloom of a cotton flower in the month of November. It is composed of heroic couplets, with a regular rhyme scheme, which is as follows: A, A, B, B, C, C, D, D, E, E, F, G, H, H, but the poem reads like Shakespearian sonnet - three quatrains developing a certain tone and theme, followed by a couplet that undercuts or reverses them. In the beginning it portrays the scuffle for survival of cotton flower during November’s harsh winter weather; but towards the end, it describes the sudden bloom of it. The author goes in depth with most of the descriptions to give a reader a clear and strong mental image.

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

One of Hurston’s stories, How it Feels to Be Colored Me, reflects the author’s perspective of the colored race (specifically herself). According to the story, when Hurston reached the age of thirteen, she truly “became colored” (1040). The protagonist was raised in Eatonville, Florida, which was mainly inhabited by the colored race. She noted no difference between herself and the white community except that they never lived in her hometown. Nevertheless, upon leaving Eatonville, the protagonist began losing her identity as “Zora,” instead, she was recognized as only being “a little colored girl” (1041). Hurston’s nickname “Zora” represents her individuality and significance; whereas, the name “a little colored girl” was created by a white society to belittle her race and gender (1041).

At time she states she feels that she simple doesn’t have a race and is merely herself. “I have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored” (Hurston, vol. 2, pp. 360). At the end of the short story she uses a metaphor: “I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall in company with other bags, white, red and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of

What are White Lies? When reading “White Lies” by Natasha Trethewey, some may believe that she is simply referring to lies that are made to others in order to make one seem better. However, it is not the case, once one learns about Trethewey’s upbringings. Trethewey was born into an interracial family in the 1960’s, which at the time was illegal.

Lies is the most meaningful word in Natasha Trethewey’s poem “White Lies” because it develops her character as untruthful and conveys the hardships she goes through with her mom. This poem is about a girl who continuously tells lies because she wants to impress the white people. However, when she gets caught by her mom, she has to go through a brutal punishment. She is African American, and living as a minority.

In her poem, “White Lies,” Trethewey’s theme in the story is discrimination and her struggle with her personal identity in America. Being born bi-racial, Trethewey explores racial identity that she experienced during her childhood. She was born in 1966 in Mississippi to a black mother and a white father. At this time, interracial marriages were not legal in Mississippi and were seen as shameful in society. Trethewey was very light skinned and had the desire to be white. The poem delivers the author’s experience with bigotry while living in the South (Bentley). This created an atmosphere of a racist society where the white community was superior over the African Americans. Growing up during this period, Trethewey felt like a lost little girl struggling with trying to find herself. In The Washington Post, Trethewey said, “Poetry showed me that I wasn’t alone” (Trethewey). This meant that writing poetry helped her to realize that she was not alone in this world of judgment, there were others facing the same issues that she was. The tone of her poem was sadness because of the prejudices she faced. To her, poetry was a place that could hold her grief (Bentley). Throughout her poem, “White Lies,” she desired to tell lies about who she was and how she lived. Her childhood was filled with thoughts and hopes of being white instead of being bi-racial. She states, “The lies I could tell, / when I was growing up” (Trethewey l. 1-2). These lines imply that she could easily lie to cover